Ropes Of Silicon has received word that Fox Searchlight has picked up Drew Barrymore‘s directorial debut Whip It!, and will release it on October 9th 2009. Searchlight is the best possible distributor for a film like this. And while October isn’t the best month to be released, the mid-October slot has done well for the studio in the past: Boy’s Don’t Cry and Sideways.

Based on the book Derby Girl by Shauna Cross, the film stars Ellen Page as Bliss, “an indie-rock loving misfit” who finds a way of dealing with her small-town misery after she discovers a roller derby league in nearby Austin Texas. Marcia Gay Harden plays Bliss’ disapproving mother, Jimmy Falon plays a cheesy hungover announcer named Hot Tub Johnny, while Kristen Wiig, Juliette Lewis, Zoe Bell and Eve play roller-derby stars.

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I haven’t seen this officially reported anywhere, so I thought I’d pass along word that Jimmy Fallon has been cast in Drew Barrymore‘s directorial debut Whip It! Fallon has been spotted by /Film sources on set of the roller derby dramedy playing “Hot Tub Johnny”, a cheesy hungover announcer who makes nasty comments to all the skaters.My sources have also spotted Andrew Wilson, brother of of Owen and Luke (fans of Wes Anderson know as “Future Man” in Bottle Rocket), who is playing a roller derby coach. The film stars Ellen Page as “an indie-rock loving misfit” who finds a way of dealing with her small-town misery after she discovers a roller derby league in nearby Austin Texas. Whip It! is currently in production.

The horror genre’s nasty feud with Oscar nominees continues, as Juno star Ellen Page has pulled out out of the dark place that is director Sam Raimi‘s upcoming horror-thriller Drag Me to Hell. Bloody Disgusting reports that the sweet tart wasn’t happy over the latest draft of the script, which was written by Raimi and his brother Ivan Raimi, but they speculate that this is really “Oscar cold feet.” Page came aboard the film earlier this month.

No word on a replacement, but who would you like to see in the flick? It was described here earlier as “a ‘spook-a-blast,’ a wild ride with all the chill and spills of [Raimi’s] The Evil Dead, without relying on the excessive violence of that film.” I’m digging the exploitation-vibe of the title, which recalls grindhouse films like I Spit on Your Grave and Thriller: A Cruel Picture. The plot reportedly revolves around “the unwitting recipient of a supernatural curse” and presumably that’s who Page was going to play. Page will next be seen in Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut, the rollerskating-fem movie Whip It!, due in 2009.

Discuss: Who’s the best replacement for Page? What young actress who hasn’t starred in a horror flick would you like to see take “the plunge”? And after three Spider-Man films and many Jacuzzi nights, does Raimi still have the goods to scare you up a wall and make you do a spit-take back to back?

“Yeah, like, why do so many of Slash Film’s readers wanna collect my bones and stuff?”

Comparable to blurting out a hat trick of her favorite indie bands outside a Cat Power concert, Ellen Page (Juno :) just booked her third film in a month’s time, following Sam Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell and Drew Barrymore’s Whip It. She’ll star opposite the ever-androgynous Cillian Murphy (Breakfast on Pluto, Scarecrow) in Peacock, a high concept thriller in which Murphy will play a split-personality “who tricks a town into believing his alter egos are man and wife.” And, of course, Page will play a struggling young mother…who instigates a battle between Murphy’s bickering inner-couple.

The script was written by NKOTB Michael Landers and Ryan Roy, with Landers directing. In one of his parting shots today, Defamer editor Mark Lisanti called the script “brilliant.” Murphy seems to agree, saying, “Peacock stunned me as a script from start to finish.” Have any /Film readers seen the light? If so, let us know.

As for the peoples who want to burn every hamburger phone on eBay and march Diablo Cody into a flaming Wicker Pop Culture Reference, do you feel Ellen Page is forever typecast a la Macaulay Culkin? And if she starred in Lars and the Real Girl 2: Oscar Bound, would that make your tummy feel better?

Unless another famous gal’s name rhymes with “Shmellen Shmage,” that’s what Shauna Cross, author of the novel Derby Girl and its adapted screenplay Whip It, tells Film School Rejects. Page would play Bliss, a “pretty, precocious teen full of sarcasm and wit and hijnks” growing up outside of Austin, Texas, who discovers a female roller derby. It’s Juno…on lil’ polyurethane wheels! I kid.

Anyone thinking that the film’s title is self explanatory should know that “whip it” is a roller skating term, as in, “she’s whipping the jammer.” Man, that is fun to say. Cross, a former L.A. Derby Doll named Maggie Mayhem, says that the flick will be the first to capture the sport with “multiple cameras and great editing,” playfully adding, “It’s going to be sick, yo.” She’s like Diablo Cody…on skates! And no, there’s still no word if the trailer will rock out to Devo. There is no trailer, duh. But you just know it’s gonna.